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Chapter Text

The spray from the waterfall clings to her skin in tiny beaded droplets, collected in her hair, along her brow, dappling her arms. The mist billows around her until it really is difficult to see, the roar of the falls pounding through her head to drown out everything else.

Rey climbs towards the cave, her hands grasping tenuously at the slick rocks. She can practically feel the rumble of the furious water vibrating through the cliff face, even though it's several yards away. This might be the hardest climb she's ever made, if not the highest or most dangerous. Below her, a churning pool, set to frothy unrest by the tumbling water from the plateau above. Just a few feet away now, a cave which, if her information can be trusted, hides a secret stash of ancient Jedi lore. Texts, she thinks, that even Luke did not know about. She's searching for more insight into balance, and too many of Luke's old records contain language condemning the unification of light and dark. They don't feel right. She is dissatisfied with her studies.

The Resistance doesn't know she's here. She stole away without permission, because her goal was too difficult to explain. They wanted her to train, to prepare to physically face down the First Order with them. But Rey knows that as valuable as physical ability can be, it is information which can mean the difference between life and death. How many times on Jakku had otherwise strong scavengers died because they didn't know to check for a live current before trying to pry off some component or another?

She's confident that the Force will guide her when it comes to combat again. She isn't confident that she has all the information the Force would have her know, though.

And so she is hunting. In this far-flung corner of the galaxy, on this verdant jungle world, against the face of this wet cliff where lies a cave which contains, she hopes, the secrets she needs to understand her purpose, the Force, and, if she's lucky, Ben Solo.

Because Rey hasn't forgotten Crait. Even after a year of life pulling her away from that memory, demanding she become what the Resistance needs. She hasn't forgotten.

There have been a few near misses when it comes to their strange bond. A few times when she thought maybe she was about to see him, where her awareness tunneled down until she could almost hear him breathing. But then it faded before it properly began, leaving her both relieved and disappointed. She doesn't know what she'd say to him, but sometimes she wishes for the chance to say something.

Maybe whatever she learns here today will help him too. Somehow, even after his frustrating pivot on the Supremacy, she still holds out a sliver of hope for him.

She finally hauls herself on trembling arms up into the cave. For a minute, she just lays there against the bare, craggy ground, panting and wracked with both sweat and shiver. This dichotomy of hot and cold, she's felt it before. The sweat cooling on her skin and the baking desert sand still radiating heat while cold Jakku night air curled around her on her way back home for the evening. When Ben touched her hand across the stars, and the freezing chill of her wet clothes clashed with the blazing fire in the hut, and the blazing fire inside her.

She gets up, hauling herself to her feet and bracing herself against one of the sloping walls of the cave to get a good look around.

The cave is deep — too dark to see all the way to the back. A few feet from the entrance grows a whole field of peculiar little plants, about ankle-high. They have pale green stalks and dark violet bulbs, and Rey isn't sure whether they're flora or fungi. They seem to be the only thing growing here. She doesn't know whether to be wary of them or not, but decides not. Other than these curious plants, she finds nothing else remarkable about the cave.

She illuminates her lightsaber — or rather, the saber that once belonged to Luke, and to his father before him. Luke had literally tossed it away, and despite her best efforts, it isn't really the same after she and Ben split the crystal anyway. So she feels justified in thinking of it as hers now. An unwanted thing, thrown aside, broken, salvaged into something new.

The irony that Ben wants this saber when no one else does isn't lost on her. She chooses not to think about it.

The light from the saber illuminates the darkness and she can see all the way to the back of the cave wall now. Thankfully, there are no other inhabitants. Not even bats. There is only the carpet of plants, running all the way to the far wall where she can just make out the shadowy silhouette of a stone box.

She exhales excitedly, moving away from the entrance and towards the box. The flowers — or mushrooms? — rustle around her feet, the bulbs velvety soft against her ankles. She stirs up a little cloud of pollen with each step and a pleasant, honey-sweet aroma infiltrates the air.

By the time she reaches the back of the cave, her wet skin and clothes have collected a fine dusting of pale lavender. Rey isn't too concerned. It'll wash off when she climbs back down into the pool to swim to her ship.

Maybe the pollen has a thermal reaction to the water, because she doesn't feel the least bit cold anymore. In fact, she feels a little warm. It's a nice change.

She kneels down amidst the fungi — she's decided that the poor sunlight in here means they probably aren't flowers — and runs her hands over the stone box. On the top is an etched pictograph. It reminds her of the mosaic on the floor of that cave on Ahch-To. A Jedi, split down the middle, one side dark, one side light. Her pulse quickens. This has to be it.

She squirms, probably from anticipation, and something low in her belly throbs.

Rey finds a latch — rusted so badly it falls off into her hand when she touches it. She lifts the lid amid a cloud of dust and pollen, sneezing immediately. Her thigh muscles clench and something in a deeper part of her sort of lifts, clenching tight. She feels uncomfortable, but she can't exactly point to why. It feels physical. Not a Force thing, she thinks.

The box has some kind of book at the bottom. She quickly lifts it out, but as soon as she does, her heart sinks. It is damp. Very damp. Her fingers sink into the cover and moisture pools against the swirls in her fingerprints. When she inspects it, she discovers the edges curled inward, the binding rotten, and the pages themselves are so covered in mildew, nothing but a few words are visible.

"Kriff," she curses. Why would a Jedi hide an important text like this in a place as karcking wet all the time as this cave?

Before she can really ponder this irritating question any further, it occurs to her that she can no longer hear the roar of the falls thundering through her head. And there's a familiar tingling in the back of her neck, and she knows that any second she will —

But fucking sithspit why does her skin feel so hot? And why is there some incredible discomfort radiating through her middle, concentrating between her legs? That's never been part of these Force episodes before.

His breathing echoes in her ears, in that vaccuum of sound she's come to know so well. And this time, she knows it won't recede.

She stands up and whirls around, and he is there.

For the first time since Crait. And he — doesn't look good. Well, he looks good, but like he hasn't been having a good time.

It's his face, mainly. His skin is paler than she remembers, his cheekbones shaper. To be fair, everything else is impeccably neat. His black clothes are crisped and pressed, his robes hanging off his shoulders like black curtains, his hair is perfectly swept in those tantalizing waves of his. But his eyes are made more hostile by the dark circles beneath them, the hard lines of his mouth, the glint of fury scratched into the firmness of his jaw. And that scar, which came by her own doing, cracks down the side of his face like a thin shock of lightning. He doesn't exactly seem happy to see her.

It doesn't matter how tired or angry he looks, Rey's body breaks out into a full sweat and a need flares in her middle, so great she actually jolts at the sight of him.

Neither of them say anything at first — what can they say? What words could bridge the gap that a full year had dug between them?

She can feel his anger, his surprise, his displeasure. He doesn't want this connection. But he does, too, because with another breath she can sense his deeply buried yearning.

And he can sense —

His body goes rigid, recoiling as if she'd struck him.

"What is wrong with you?" he demands.

Rey is shifting again, her skin too tight, too hot. "That's what you have to say," she asks incredulously, "after all this time?"

He's turning away from her, looking around as to try to see her surroundings, even though he already knows it won't work. "Why would you instigate this in the middle of..." he gestures vaguely at her.

"In the middle of what?"

Kriff, his voice. Rey's limbs feel like jelly. Her hand twitches towards her pants, and she shifts them a little, trying to adjust the fabric as if that will make her more comfortable. It doesn't. The mere rasp of fabric against her vulva makes her draw a sharp breath.

The sound isn't missed by Ben. His head snaps around and he eyes her warily. "Are you alone?"

"Yes." It's surprisingly difficult to speak. She is struggling not to dig her hands into her crotch, rubbing her thighs together for a bit of friction instead.

He nods once to himself, and Rey can feel the curl of relief that twists in him. Why is he glad she's alone? He assesses her again. His gaze raking over her makes her blood blaze. Sweat has gathered on her brow, is slipping down the valley of her spine. She has to brace herself against the cave wall, and her hand does go between her legs now, pressing hard there as she shifts again. She can't help it.

"Why are you covered in purple?" he asks, his voice sounding a little strained.

"I — " she shakes her head, her thoughts increasingly disjointed. She wants to drown in his voice. Wants him to talk to her dark and low, to narrate everything he was doing to her body — ? What?

What does that even mean?

Her mind supplies decidedly unhelpful images of what her body wants, and her cunt pulses at the visceral hunger they evoke. She can feel the blush bloom in her cheeks and she can't bring herself to look at him, knowing he might have glimpsed these raw scenes splintering through her head.

He takes another step back from her, a strong ripple of frustration flickering to her through the bond. "Are you so unpracticed suppressing your physical needs, scavenger, that you can't control your thoughts or actions right now?"

His voice is laden with accusation and scorn.

"Shut up," she wrenches out, subtly sliding her hand back and forth along the spot where she aches. "I've never felt anything like this before. I don't — know what's — happening."

A brow arches skeptically. "You don't?" He draws his cloak around himself, as if it will shield him, and steps a little closer, peering at her. "Hm. You don't. Where are you?"

"I'm — in a cave." She manages to glance around before sinking to a crouch. She's soaked now for all different reasons than the waterfall, her scorched skin glistening with sweat that puddles against her collar bone. She rocks back onto her butt, drawing her knees up, hiding the desperate movements of her hand rubbing uselessly against the burn.

"A cave." He repeats this like its annoyingly useless. "Near the resistance base?"

She's not too far gone to shoot him a knowing look. "No," she says firmly. "I'm off-world. I'm...on my own."

She can feel him. A thread of his psyche pushes into hers, and even though it's only a little tease of his energy intruding into her mind, it makes her whimper and tip her head back against the wall, her thighs frantically clenching with need. She needs a lot more of that. The feeling of him invading her.

Ben stumbles a single step towards her, swearing under his breath, as if he'd been dragged by forces beyond his control. He doesn't leave her mind though, sorting carefully for what he is looking for. She lets him, practically groaning at the slowly mounting agony in her body to have this taste of him without any of the physical gratification. She keeps only a few things from him — everything about the Resistance, of course, and some of her more secret, more murky feelings regarding him. Anything else he is free to find, and find he does. He discovers the plan to find the Jedi texts, and her journey to it.

"You're on Itha?" he asks with disgust. "You just went running off to karcking Itha without knowing anything about it?"

Rey had done her due diligence, of course, learning about atmosphere and gravitational pull before arriving, but anything else escapes her now. She can't think. Her hand works beneath the hem of her pants and her fingers slide into her wetness. She bites her lip to stifle the moan that escapes her.

"Stop," Ben commands, sounding furious all over again. "Stop. What you're doing — it affects me too."

"I can't," she gasps.

"You have to. It won't help. That dust, if it's what I think it is, you're in real trouble. You've got to get out of there."

"Can't," she grinds through gritted teeth. She builds towards a frantic orgasm, and her whole body clenches with it, she buries her face against her knees to hide her humiliation from him, riding it silently to its conclusion.

He makes a strangled noise and turns away, a hand flying to cover his mouth.

The fire doesn't abate with her release. It billows hotter still. Rey can't handle it, she's doing to boil alive in her own skin. She scrabbles at her belt, yanking it off. Her feet slide forward as she unloops the gauzy fabric she wraps around herself, taking out more of the fungi plants. She barely notices the fresh new cloud of pollen as she drags her shirt off, left only in her breast band from the waist up. The air does not relieve her burn.

Ben stiffens and when he glances back at her, color rises in his cheeks. "Damnit, Rey, stop. Cut this connection and get yourself out of there before you die of dehydration."

Yes, she will die, Rey thinks blearily. She'll pass out before she gets relief. But her limbs won't move, all she can do is bury her inadequate fingers inside herself and press hard to try to relieve the ache.

"Go away," she says instead. "You break the bridge, because apparently I can't, and you being here is making it worse."

It is. His voice, his hugeness, his fathom-deep eyes like the promising embrace of darkest space, they all make her so fucking wet she's soaking right through her pants. Her body thinks it would be a very good idea to jump him right now. She still has enough lucidity left to know what a bad idea that would be, but the knowledge doesn't make her suffering any more bearable.

"I can't either," he says hoarsely. He staggers another step towards her and then forces himself to stop. "It's the — the plants."

"The plants are triggering this connection?"

"No, your — condition. What's happening to you. Itha is a vergence in the Force. One half of the planet is a dead waste, a swamp rife with pestilence and disease. People who travel there unwittingly always come out carrying some fatal contamination. The other half is exploding with life, the biggest variety in the galaxy, with new species appearing all the time. And...it encourages more life. It boosts fertility and the...the urge to propagate."

Possibly there exists a scenario where Rey might find this explanation fascinating, but this is not that moment. She shudders, his words slanting through her awareness all crooked and wrong. She picks up a fungus flower in her free hand and blinks at it, grasping at understanding. The planet is trying to get her to...breed?

And her body, apparently, knows exactly the person for the job.

"Get the karck out of here, Ben," she mutters, even as another wave rises within her and she drops the plant again.

"I can't," he says again. He's staring at the ground at his feet now, and Rey wonders if he can see the smears of purple pollen messily scattered over the floor, sprinkled over his boots. "I don't know how to close it."

When this happened before, these connections would sometimes stop if they lost focus on one another. So Rey swings around and turns her back on him, deliberately trying to forget him. This has the added benefit of being able to conceal her efforts, so she lets her legs fall open wider and strokes furiously through her slick center.

She needs to be rid of these pants. This would be easier without pants.

"Call someone," he demands.

Well damn. He's still there.

She shakes her head. "My comm is back at my ship."

"Rey," he says, and the way her name sounds on his lips — it sends her over the edge. She slaps the wave wall with her free hand and swears as she curls in on herself and shudders through it.

"Fuck," Ben gasps behind her. He sounds as ruined as she feels. "You have to stop."

"Get out of my head if you can't stand it," she pants.

"I would if I kriffing could. You think this is fun for me?" He sounds truly angry now. She peeks a glance over her shoulder. His fists are clenched, his shoulders high and tight, his face twisted in resentment despite his scarlet cheeks.

"You have to get out," he tells her again. "Get out of that cave and into some water. You're covered in it all that dust. I'm certain it's the dust. It'll drive you insane or exhaust you to death. Wash it off."

She knows he's right. But Ben can only see her and the speckling lavender on her skin. He can't see how much she's kicked up into the air, how the cave is full of it — pollen or spores or whatever it is — filling her lungs with every breath. Easy tinder to stoke her raging flames. Still, she has to try. She manages to get to her feet, but wobbles unsteadily as her head spins, her cunt throbs, and then she's careening, loosing her balance.

Ben throws out an arm to catch her before she dives head-first for the floor.

"Get out," he demands again.

But Rey can't hear this command when his arm is around her waist like this. So big. So strong. This fierce enemy who has tried to kill her, and has killed for her, too. Her fingers lace into his cloak and she yanks. He lurches into her by a step before bracing himself, using his arm to maintain some distance between them now and scowling at the purple dust covering his sleeve.

"Stars, you're filthy," he says in disgust.

Rey growls softly, at both the lack of contact and because she really isn't as filthy as her body needs right now. She pulls Ben's cape again, trying to get his whole body in against her. He still holds her back. The anger is draining out of his face though as he takes her in, close but not close enough. She tugs feebly at the fabric.

"Help me," she pleads. "I can't get out of here. I need — I need —"

"I know what you need," he says, and it's surprisingly gentle. It sounds like the way he spoke to her in the turbolift. Stars, that day. The way he'd murdered his master for her. The way they'd fought the Praetorians together, his Force and her Force sealed in one bright cosmic power. The way his thigh muscles had been so hard and so tight under her errant grab of support.

Ben chokes again and lets go of her, prying her fingers off his cloak so he can turn away from her, and she realizes her thoughts had been loud, and he'd seen them.

She didn't even realize she'd resumed touching herself at some point until another orgasm rips through her, painfully strong but completely unsatisfying. She grits her teeth and makes no sound through it except ragged, struggling breaths.

Ben's shoulders are drawn high again, and he's trembling. His black gloved fingers are in his hair, covering half his face. Rey's head swims. She feels like she's going to pass out except that her body is fucking desperate for something she can't give herself. The solution is here, she knows. She can feel it. He is the solution. He holds the key to her reprieve. But he is denying her, and she doesn't know why. Maybe it's just that she hasn't asked.

"Ben," she whimpers plaintively.

She can see the purple pollen collected on the edges of his cloak, smeared over his sleeve. Does it affect him too? Is he breathing it the way she is?

When he turns around, she can see what he'd tried to conceal with his cloak a moment ago. A distinct bulge below his waist. It is affecting him.

"Not that," he says jaggedly. "I have dealt with nuisances like this before. It's you, scavenger. You're in my head, and I don't know how to shut you out."

"Then don't," she pleads. "Help me."

"You don't want that," he rasps, and there is resentment raking through his voice.

Does she? Rey can't think very well, she knows that. Her mind is being dragged viciously by these unfamiliar, heinously strong needs of her body. She knows her judgement is severely compromised. But it doesn't seem to matter, this knowledge. It can't matter. If she doesn't get relief she'll — she'll what? Dry up like a desiccated corpse left out under the Jakku sun? Sweat herself to death? Bring herself to repeated painfully meaningless orgasms until she collapses from exhaustion? Maybe if she could crawl to the exit of the cave, she could just fling herself down into the water. How far is it? Could she survive the drop? Even if she could, her swimming skills aren't exactly strong. In this weakened state, could she get herself to the shore?

She tears her hand away from her dripping cleft and manages to get onto her hands and knees.

Ben makes a tortured sound and stalks away. She can't really tell where he's going, but he doesn't disappear. The cave just sort of seems too…elongate, or deepen, to accommodate him. Meanwhile Rey zeroes in on the exit. If Ben won't help her, she has to save herself. She's good at doing that. She's been doing it her whole life.

But she's inches away from the plants now, and she's coated in it, inhaling it in huge gulps. Her head spins and her skin burns and before she knows it, tears are blurring her vision, sliding down her face. She can't seem to make her body move, and it's fucking torture, the emptiness. She might expire from desperate need alone.

It was a mistake to come here by herself. She knows that now, of course. A mistake to conceal her activities from the Resistance. A mistake to not tell anyone where she was going as a failsafe. Maybe too a mistake to think she could find a way to save Ben, even when he's made very clear that he does not want to be saved.

Rey curls into a miserable ball on the floor and shoves her hand back into her pants, trying to cry as softly as she can because even as he tries to find a way out of wherever he is, Ben is still here and somehow letting him see her weep is so much worse than having him witness her fruitless masturbation. If he won't help her, then she just wants to be left alone in this. Because if there is anything she knows how to do, it's how to be alone on the razor edge of survival.

"Rey," he says softly. She peeks up at him. He's come back, closer again. His jaw is tight, moving, rolling something over in deliberation. "You're not…"

"Kriff off," she snaps. She doesn't want to hear that bullshit from him right now. That pure bantha fodder. He said it before, but he's a fucking liar because she is alone. Like she's always been. Like she always will be.

But then he's kneeling down next to her. A gloved hand hovers over her shoulder for a second, hesitating, and then it lands, cool to the touch but making her burn even brighter. He gently pushes her over onto her back. His dark eyes are…conflicted. She can't even really read what's in them, except for the tiny shafts of his emotions which manage to make it through the thick miasma of her drugged needs. He wants. But he's also afraid. He's concerned, but he's also hurt.

"I'm going to come get you," he says softly. A promise. "I'll find you and get you out of there."

Her eyes widen, but it doesn't do much good because they're full of tears again. She can't stop touching herself, her body squirming even as she tries to focus on what he's saying. Why would he do that? He doesn't owe her anything. He saved her once, but technically he's the one who endangered her in the first place so she doesn't really think it counts. And — kriff, why do her fingers bring no relief?

His glance flicks to her hand, and his cheeks pink. "I can…I can make it better. Just something to help until I can get to you."

Rey nods. Anything. Anything to make it stop for just a second.

He swallows and his gaze holds hers. "I need you to say it. Out loud."

This isn't a moment for pride. Rey isn't used to asking for help, and under other circumstances she might struggle with this, but the need in her is all-consuming, and it strips her of any inhibitions.

"Please, Ben," she whispers. "I want you to."

His tongue swipes once across his lips, maybe nervously, she thinks. He pulls off his gloves. Rey stares at his fingers and remembers the last time he touched her uncovered, across a galaxy of stars. He's going to do it again now. The significance isn't lost on her.

By the look on his face, she knows it isn't lost on him either.

"Just...lay back," he instructs, and his fingers find her wrist, bare skin on bare skin a shock of pleasure she almost comes again just from that. At least no visions burst from the touch this time. He pulls her hand away from her aching, soaked core and puts it up by her head.

"No more touching," he says firmly.

She nods, but it's so hard. She needs to relieve the pressure. She needs—

"I know what you need," he murmurs again, echoing himself.

His fingers curl into the waistband of her pants and he slides them off slowly, shuddering when all of her secret places come into view.

Rey doesn't know if she should be embarrassed or not. Her enemy — or maybe not enemy — is kneeling over her, taking in her completely vulnerable, exposed body. A body she has never bothered to groom in preparation for anything like this because this hasn't really ever been part of her life before. She doesn't know how other girls keep it down there, really, so she doesn't know if she's nice or nasty.

But the way he's looking at her now, she doesn't think she needs to be embarrassed. His cheeks flush once more and his lips part in a shaky exhale. He can barely force himself to look away. His gaze keeps jumping back to her slit, as if he knows he shouldn't stare but can't help himself.

This is too slow for Rey's needs right now. Her hand twitches downwards again, flying for her center. But Ben is quick, he catches her wrist. And this attempt at self-service seems to awaken something in him because suddenly he moves, surging over her, pinning her hand next to her head with one of his own while he forces her legs apart with his knees and gets between them, his other hand on her thigh.

"I said no touching," he growls, and his dark eyes bore into her with nothing but unveiled hunger now.

Yes, she thinks, and the flames licking at her body rise higher still. The hand at her hip slides over her thigh, his thumb trailing down the juncture between her leg and her pelvis. He grazes it over her vulva, down her seam.

His face is by hers but at this touch his attention turns from her eyes down to the business below. Rey wants to see too but Ben's got her hemmed in, keeping her down, and anyway when his thumb explores her, this time parting her outer folds and nudging against that place, she can't really do anything except gasp and buck hard into his touch.

He shifts his hand so that now his longest finger is gliding through the wetness of her core, skating a stripe from her copiously leaking center up to that nub of sensation that makes her clench and jump.

No one has ever touched her before. It's...exhilarating. And sinfully good. She feels completely undone and he's only just begun. Ben pays rapt attention to her every expression, adjusting his touch to draw out certain reactions. He circles her clit gently but purposefully, nudging it once in a while to keep her guessing. When he dips a single finger into her she hisses, tensing up. It's not like she didn't just have her own finger up inside herself, but this is different, because Ben's is much thicker, and blunter, and there's something about someone else pushing into her body that makes her clamp down.

Ben pauses, and Rey grinds out a furious curse word.

"Calm down," he tells her, "We're not finished. I'll get you there. I just need to know — are you a—?"

"Yes, you karcker," she seethes, snapping her thighs tight against him, grabbing at the arm still holding her hand down with her free one and clawing at his sleeve.

For some reason this answer gets him all flustered, his cheeks pinking yet again even as his fingers resume their task, working her back up. This time when he tentatively slips a digit into her, he does it slowly, in short, shallow dips, slowly working his way in deeper.

"Tell me if you want me to stop," he says.

She isn't going to tell him. Something inside her is coiling tighter and tighter, and she's so close to something big, something important.

"Shit, Ben," she whimpers, writhing as he seats his finger deep and crooks it just there, and suddenly she's coming apart, shuddering and curling in against him and biting back the sound that tries to wrench out of her.

She gasps when she's through it, her head spinning and colors shining in glossy relief against the dark cave. And for the first time, she feels the cool breeze sweep in through the opening and the chill of the waterfall spray misting in with it. The fire inside her is banked, for now. She can feel that it isn't over though.

Ben hasn't moved. He's staring at her with an expression she can't read. His hand, so hot and heavy and encompassing, still covers and invades her sex, even though it no longer moves.

"Why do you stay quiet when you come?" he asks.

She blushes. "I don't know? I've never done it any other way."

He looks like he might say something else, but then his jaw tightens, his eyes flash with some steely look and he abruptly pulls away from her, a cool swoop of air replacing his soothing touch.

His hand, glistening with her, curls into a fist. "Can you hold on until I can get to you?"

She nods tiredly.

And just like that, he's gone. The connection, whatever it is, just ends. Apparently the Force agrees with him that it's time for talk to cease and action to begin. Rey experiences a flicker of panic, though. She doesn't know if he will come like he said he would. Her head is a little clearer, but her body still feels weak and a little nauseated and the slickness between her thighs is still flowing at a generous rate. At least she doesn't need to touch herself right now. That is a small blessing.

She watches the tiny motes of pollen, or spores, or whatever they are, float through the air, catching in the dim light. Such tiny particles to elicit such a strong physical response. She really should have read more about this place before heading off to it. Being a spacer is a new thing for Rey. She's learning, but usually she has more experienced people around her when she has to go off-planet, and the mission has already been mapped out. Apparently she's got a few things to figure out before going rogue like this.

It isn't long until the flames rise again and she rolls over onto her side, trying to mimic what Ben had done, but she can't quite manage it herself. She's too tired from her hard orgasm to fight the exhaustion that quickly overtakes her, and she loses focus. Or maybe consciousness.

Chapter Text

She has no idea how much time has passed, between fits of dozing and fits of frantically chasing orgasms. She only knows that she's sobbing and hurting, and that no amount of touching herself does anything but spike her needs higher.

She's dimly aware when a dark figure enters the cave, his presence huge in the cramped, moist dark. He's wearing something over his mouth. A cloth or... a cowl. She doesn't know, but her mind dimly supplies a vague kind of joke about him being in another mask. She's too far gone to voice it. Or anything. He lifts her. She squirms listlessly, hyper aware even in her exhaustion that she is very naked and his magic hands are tantalizingly close.

He makes a low, growling note deep in his chest. "Stop."

The word is almost meaningless. She can't.

Rey isn't sure how he got up here, or how he gets them down. She isn't aware of anything except the painful need, until a stunning shock of cold water embraces her.

He's laid her in the shallows and is now gently washing the pollen off. His huge hands make big passes over all her limbs, rubbing down in a way that makes her eyes roll and her cunt spasm, and she moans softly with need. The fever in her blood still rages, but at least her skin no longer feels prickly.

Ben is wet too, she realizes when he splashes water over her chest and palms over her navel. He doesn't touch her breast band, the only scrap of clothing she has left. He's wet because he's in the pool at the base of the cliff with her, his clothes as soaked as she is.

When he gently wipes her face clean, his eyes finally find hers. They are dilated and so dark, and Rey feels a wave of strong desire move through him.

She blinks. "It got you."

He looks away, frowning. "Of course it did. It was like walking into a kriffing cloud."

Yes, she can see a faint dusting of lavender along his hairline, the faintest trace clinging to the soft waves of his hair.

But he came. As promised. And he got her out.

Rey opens her mouth to speak.

Ben interrupts her. "You need medical attention. A saline flush to get this drug out of your system."

She sits up. His hands fall away from her as she splashes water onto her own cheeks now, scrubbing her face. It feels...nice. Not as nice as his touch did, and not at all what she really needs, but good anyway.

When she finishes, she gives him a dubious look. "So do you."

She can see how white-knuckled he is. How the wet fabric of his pants clings to him, leaving nothing to the imagination as to the sheer size of him and just how much the pollen affects him.

Rey rubs her thighs together desperately, squeezing her inner muscles around nothing. She wants to touch him. Wants to touch it.

Ben reels back and away from her so fast he actually catches in the water and sits down in an ungraceful flump.

"No," he croaks.

This surprises her. "Why not? I can feel how much you want me to. You forget that this works both ways."

"I don't want it," he snaps, and even though he looks anything but powerful, sitting here in shallow water with a raging hard-on and flushed cheeks, the command still rings with that familiar belligerent authority she remembers so well from him.

The rejection stings. Even under the influence of powerful aphrodisiacs, he doesn't want her. What does that say about her? That she is so repulsive? That she is unworthy of love?

Love. That's no what's going on here, she reminds herself.

"Where do you want me to take you?" he says after a few steadying breaths. "For medical attention?"

"What do you mean?"

"We have the finest resources available with the First Order, but I'm guessing you don't want that."

"What, you're not just going to kidnap me and whisk me off there anyway? You have me in a very advantageous position here, Supreme Leader." Rey's hand transfers between her legs again unwillingly, and she once more begins to attend to herself, though it's harder in the water and she's getting rather raw down there.

Ben doesn't like that. He scowls. "No, I'm not."

"Why? Isn't that what you want?"

"No." He bares his teeth in an angry grimace. She can feel the wave of frustration move through him. He's annoyed at her. But after a tense moment, his expression fades into something more...resigned. "I asked you to join me. I'm not going to force you, Rey. I didn't then, and I won't now. That would be very much the opposite of what I hope. I want you to... want to be with me."

She doesn't really know what to say to that. Right now her whole body urges her to scream that she does want him, and yes of course she'll go with him, and so will he please just do that thing he did with his hands again?

But she bites the words back because she doesn't trust that they're her own.

Another wave of need and pain crests in her and she fusses, practically folding herself in half as she braces against it.

Ben shudders, and his voice drops. "I know. I feel it too."

"So why can't we do something about it?"

He frowns. "Because it isn't real. This—" he waves his hand between them, "it's just the infection trying to win. It's meaningless."

"So? Why can't we just help each other through this until it burns through our system? Why does it have to be real? Why should it have to mean anything?"

Ben's face grows suddenly cold. He stands up and stalks away from her, out of the water, rivulets streaming from his wet clothes. They can't be comfortable, all those layers soaked like that.

Rey staggers to unsteady feet and makes it a few steps out of the water before she collapses to the ground again and buries two inadequate fingers into her clutch, too weak to chase him.

"Ben, I'm sorry," she calls after him instead. She knows she offended him, though she doesn't know exactly how. And really, she doesn't even know if she should be sorry, because he's offended her too, in his turn. Before. When he said she was nothing. But then, wasn't that something she already knew herself?

He whirls around. She can see a furious reply ready and poised on his tongue, but his eyes catch on the desperate pump of her own fingers and he's distracted out of whatever he was going to rage at her.

A few frustrated breaths find their way out of him before he mutters, "You're doing it wrong."

"Then do it for me," she gasps.

His eyes shoot to hers, those dark pools glittering. "You liked that?"

"I kriffing loved it," she said. "You're...you're good at that."

His nostrils flare and his fists clench again. She can feel his desire again, almost as feverish and heady as her own. She can feel the pulse of his own need, raging and concentrating in a ferociously hard spot in his body. He's hanging on to the edge of control by his fingernails.

"Ben," Rey says softly. "Let go. Please."

He shudders, and then suddenly strides towards her. Her heart skips erratically as he peels off the wet layers of doublets and shirts and everything else he's got on top.

"You wear way too many clothes," she observes. "No wonder you're in a bad mood all the time."

He shoots her a look, but says nothing. He's sweating now, just like she is. They're both in this. For some reason, that makes her glad. Relieved, maybe. That she won't be the only one enslaved to her baser needs.

But Ben is really good at denying himself. His hands never go to his pants, never near his probably unbearable erection. He just kneels down next to her, tears her hand away from her own snatch, and replaces it with his own, unceremoniously sliding a finger into her so that her back arches and she swallows a startled noise.

"No," Ben growls. "You won't be silent for me. You can't hide from me, Rey."

The way he says her name, and stars, the feel of him pushing into her mind like a slow but steady invasion, crowding in so she can't distinguish between what's her and what's him anymore, it sends her rocketing to new heights. She suppresses a whine, forgetting his demand until suddenly he is over her, his face inches from her own, his thumb working her clit expertly while he pumps his finger.

"You asked for this," he reminds her. "You begged. So you're going to give me all your lovely noises, Rey. Let. Them. Go."

With that, he slips his finger out and returns with two. And it's way too much, and a cry wrenches loose from Rey's lips, and her hips lift. But Ben chases her, keeping two of his thick digits embedded firmly inside her.

"Good," he purrs. "See? Doesn't it feel better to let it out?"

Some belligerent part of her wants to deny him this satisfaction. Wants to mute herself again and give him nothing but her breath. But stars, she can't. Because he's easing his fingers back and forth, and too much quickly becomes just right, and now he's crooking his fingers into that place, and desperate moans are falling out of her faster than she can catch them.

Ben smirks. One corner of his mouth quirks in smug pleasure.

"Is this what you wanted, scavenger?"

"Yes, kriff, Ben, yes," she mumbles senselessly. He nudges the heel of his palm into her clit, pressing down hard while he rocks his fingers deeper into her.

Rey's hands leap to his shoulders, those marvelous huge shoulders, raking down the sculpted marble of his impressive chest. Fuck, she'd wanted to get her hands on him since she first saw him, bared in that unexpected connection on the island. A big, beautiful body made to be touched. To be studied by eager hands.

"You're so..." she manages to breathe, but his movements get a bit rougher and the word flies away in a blaze of pleasure.

"Fuck, Rey, I can't—" He shudders and unconsciously grinds his pelvis against her thigh. His hard length presses against her makes him groan.

"Let me." She tries to reach for his pants, but he jerks out of her reach.

"No. I won't be able to stop," he says in dark, low warning. "I'm compromised."

"The pollen," she acknowledges.

His eyes grow blacker still. "It's not just the pollen, Rey. I think you know that."

Does she? Yes, she realizes, she does. Because what's swirling through Ben right now isn't just a sickly-bright lust. There's something deeper and older than a fertility-frantic planet at work here. A hunger. For her.

And that drives Rey wild, to know she is the one who has so compromised the Supreme Leader. That even without the plants, he wants her.

"Yes," he rumbles. "I do."

Rey thinks she wants him too. That she has since everything started to change on Ahch-To. The whole reason she shipped herself to him on the Supremacy was to be with him. The only person who had ever listened to her and saw her and understood her. The only one who felt her same loneliness. She didn't want him to hurt the way she did. They could heal each other, maybe. She wanted that then, and wants it still. It's why she couldn't give up, even after Crait. Why she's here on this karcking horny planet. For him.

Ben's hand slows and his eyes are on her face. Rey whimpers and bucks into him. It isn't enough. Even as she climbs towards this peak, she knows it isn't enough. She needs more.

Her desperate sound seems to stir him out of whatever made him lose focus, and he's back, grinding into her the way she needs. And then she breaks, and she almost holds it in like she's done before, but a rough ram of his fingers and a ruthless press into that secret spot inside her reminds her to let it go, so she does, a drawn out cry flinging into the misty air above them, almost drowned by the sound of the falls.

Ben eases out of her and looks at his wet hand again. "Fuck, Rey. You're..."

"I know," she pants, heat rising in her cheeks. "I don't know if it's you or this stuff. I've never been this...messy before."

With a slow, almost unconscious kind of motion his fingers drift up to his mouth and he licks them with one broad swipe of his tongue. It's too much, and it makes Rey's stomach flip and her face flame hot.

Ben closes his eyes in one brief expression of ecstasy.

"How is it that no one has ever done this for you before?" he asks in a low, gravelly voice. "How are you still a virgin?"

She's still catching her breath, but sits up anyway and gives him an odd look. "Not like I had any good options on Jakku, did I? There were plenty of opportunists who wanted to try, of course. What's more vulnerable than a girl by herself in the desert? From the time I was a kid until when I left, I dealt with them. But I taught each and every one of those karckers what trying to force me would get them."

For some reason, Ben smirks at this. That smug upturned corner returns. "I have no doubt you did. But surely with the Resistance, you have better choices."

She does. But here she blushes again. "It's complicated."

Complicated because she fell in with the Resistance at the same time she met him. And somehow none of them seem to occupy the same kind of space in her mind or heart as he does. Like he is her missing piece. It leaves no room for any of the others.

The heat is rising in her again, his efforts having only brought her a brief reprieve. And he has to be dying, because he hasn't gotten any relief himself.

"Ben—" she begins, to offer to help him.

But he cuts her off. "Why do you call me that?"

She blinks. "What?"

"You shouldn't. You're the only one who does."

"But...it's your name."

"That person is gone, Rey." His gaze lifts, distant and guarded. "That's while you failed on the Supremacy. You came to rescue someone who doesn't exist."

She frowns. "I think we both know that isn't true. Ben Solo is right here." Rey gets up onto her knees and touches a hand to his sweaty chest. "Kylo Ren didn't fly across the galaxy to pull me naked out of a cave so I didn't die alone there. Kylo Ren would have considered it a convenience to be rid of me."

At that, he looks away, his mouth pulling into the smallest of frowns. She means to take her hand away, but at the motion he grabs her wrist and holds it there against him. She can feel the smooth, hot skin beneath the pads of her fingertips, and the way he trembles, just a little. His heart hammers beneath her hand. Her gaze lifts to meet his.

"You left…" he whispers in soft, pained accusation.

"And you stayed," she replies.

This isn't the time to get into this. To hash out what happened. To figure out where they go from here. She still feels muggy from the pollen and both of them are a little too close to some kind of supernova to rationally asses whatever it is that exists between them.

Maybe Ben knows this too, because his jaw tightens and he lets his hand fall away from her wrist. His chest rises and falls in a huffy breath. "So where am I taking you?"

"Right here?" she says hopefully.

He cuts her a sharp look. "That isn't what I meant."

Her fingers trail down his chest, descending the plane of stone to what lies below. She doesn't touch yet, though. He's afforded her careful respect thus far, and she needs to reciprocate. So she lets her hand over just above the bulge, lifting her gaze to ask without words.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asks. "We can take care of this at a medical center. We don't have to—"

"I'm sure." As sure as she can be, she thinks, with her judgement thus impaired. But something inside her whispers that the pollen doesn't have as much to do with it as she thinks. She wants him. "Do you? Want it?"

For a moment, she thinks he'll say no. His face twists, his expression grim. But then a hand lifts and his knuckles graze the line of her jaw. The touch goes straight to her groin. She bits her lip to silence the soft sound that lodges in her throat. And it seems like he might kiss her, with the way he pauses at her chin, his half-hooded eyes on her lips. But he just nods instead, shifting his pelvis up to nudge into her still hesitating hand.

She lets it fall, palming down the length of him — shit, he feels vast.

Ben's breath catches in his chest and he grimaces.

"Not good?" she squeaks.

"It's good, it's just..." He shakes his head. "Fuck this purple dust. It's too…"

Rey understands. Too sensitive. Too close to the edge. The need is too great. She doesn't really know what she's doing, how to touch a man here, really, but she explores curiously anyway, mindful of the too-ness, keeping her motions light and grazing.

"Just —" his chest heaves and his breath catches. "I can't — pretend it doesn't — mean anything. It does."

Something within her quails at the implications of this. She bites her lip and focuses on the shape of him through his pants. "I know," she whispers. "It means something to me too."

Ben pushes away from her and gets up. He looks around once. Her X-Wing is not too far away, his own TIE Whisper beside it. Other than that, they are utterly alone, surrounded by a riotous forest at the base of this monstrous mossy cliff, the massive waterfall tumbling ever downward in a billow of spray. They couldn't be more isolated if they searched the whole galaxy.

He gets his cloak and brings it over, shaking it out once before laying it on the ground.

A mistake.

Pollen is still collected on the fabric, and now it floats through the air in a fine purple scatter. They both issue simultaneous sneezes.

"Kriff," he mutters, shaking his head as if that could clear what he'd just inhaled. "We're never getting out of here."

Rey is already touching herself again. She can't help it. She can't stop. Her head swims the way it did up there in that cave.

Ben doesn't like that. "Come here," he says, motioning to his cloak on the ground.

She does, eyeing it dubiously. "We'll ruin it."

"It doesn't matter. It's better than being in the dirt. Lie down."

Her heart leaps into a new, nervous rhythm as she settles back on the heavy fabric of his cloak. Ben's body is practically glowing, she thinks hazily as her mind spins dizzy circles against fresh hit of pollen. The thinks (and maybe hopes) that he'll get straight to it, but he doesn't. Instead he moves to take off her breast band.

Her fingers find his and make him stop. "What are you doing?"

"I don't want to hurt you," he says softly.

"Then don't?" She doesn't understand the correlation. Even though she thinks it might feel nice to be touched there, and part of her wants him to, she's afraid of letting go of this last piece of clothing she has left. They don't strictly need to remove it to...do that, do they?

Ben exhales slowly, and he can see how he too struggles to keep his mental footing. "You've never done this before. As much as your body thinks it wants it…I need to make sure you're ready. I'm not sure you know what you're getting yourself into."

Her glance flicks down to the bulge in his pants — kriff, why is he still wearing pants when she's the one about to be fully naked here?

"Trust me," he urges gently.

She pries her fingers away from his and submits, letting him work the band off until she is completely exposed. He pauses for a moment to take her in, his eyes greedily sweeping over her every swell and valley. She moves instinctually to hide herself with her arm, but he pushes her away and cups each of her breasts in his large hands, running his thumbs gently over her nipples. She jerks with the shock of pleasure from it, gasping. He grins this feral little grin that might have alarmed her in any other circumstance, but right now she can't find it in herself to read into it. Even though where she desperately needs him is currently going without any attention, she doesn't want this to stop either. And when he leans over to take one of her breasts into his mouth and sucks, she swears her soul physically ascends out of her body.

"Oh kriff, kriff," she swears incoherently, her back arching into him. He makes his needy, grumbly sound and wraps a hand over her waist, kneading into her flesh while his other dips between her legs. She's full of two of his fingers a moment later, blinded by the sparks behind her eyes at every draught he tries to take from her. Honestly, Rey doesn't know how she's managed to make it to twenty years old without knowing her breasts were so damn sensitive, but it's a whole new kind of awakening. One that belongs entirely to Ben.

He scissors his fingers, stretching her methodically until he can gradually ease more into her, and she doesn't exactly know how many he's got in there, but she's guessing three. This should be uncomfortable. It should be awful, really, given the size of his damn fingers. But she can't really feel any discomfort right now because there are too many other sensations rocketing through her. He laves a tongue soothingly over her raw, plump red nipple and then switches his attention to the other. Her fingers find their way into his hair, holding tight as she flies to another plane of existence.

The next orgasm catches her off guard, and she cries loudly as she experiences a flood of wetness so generous, it actually makes her worry for a minute that something else happened, except that Ben is groaning into her skin in a sound of undeniable satisfaction.

"Good," he praises gently, lifting his head. His eyes are warm and affectionate, and it makes Rey's breath catch for other reasons.

"Now?" she rasps.

He nods. "I think you're ready."

Honestly, Rey is amazed at his self control. When he finally, finally shucks off his pants and comes springing into view, her first thought is big, but her second thought is that it must be incredibly painful. The way his cock strains upward, flushed with color and so hard, it can't be comfortable. And he hasn't touched himself at all. She sits up as he settles between her legs, her fingers eager to do what he hasn't. He chokes out a shuddering breath and buries his face in her neck as she slides her hand over his length, gripping him gently, tugging with some wonder that silky soft skin over an iron-hard core. Her idle hand lifts to the back of his neck, subconsciously soothing him even as she trails her nails down and back up, exposing his glans, dipping lower, raking lightly over his testicles.

If Rey could think clearly, she'd certainly be asking herself right now what the hell she was doing. Fondling her enemy at war. Admiring the utter manliness of everything he's got going on here, asking herself if she'll be able to actually fit him, desperately hungry to try. This isn't how she envisioned finding him again after that sad parting on Crait. This isn't at all how she thought it would go.

"Me neither," Ben says softly, answering her unspoken thoughts.

Rey had some vague idea that there would be a great deal more drama, maybe some difficult conversations, some kind of reunion with Leia and the introduction to the Resistance. She sees Ben's idea of how it would be, too. It flits between his mind and hers. He imagined her coming to him, taking her place on the throne beside him, the two of them arrayed in power and glory and — and a kiss.

She stills at that one. Oh.

He lifts his head and scans her face for a reaction to what he knows she saw.

Rey isn't sure what he finds. She isn't really sure what she even feels about that, because the dull roar in her body is getting louder, and Ben's cock is harder still. Then suddenly he pushes her down and lifts her knees, arranging her how he wants. He places her hands on his shoulders, and she feels like he's telling her to hang on. She bites her lip, nervous even as she's almost on the verge of tears again with how badly she needs this.

At the first nudge at her entrance she jumps.

"Rey," he says through gritted teeth, concern making it through the sweat on his brow, holding himself still above her. "Are you sure?"

She nods. This isn't how she thought her first time would be, hurtled headlong into it by an external substance demanding things she's never done before, but it feels right that it's Ben. Somehow. "I'm sure."

He rocks along her slit a couple times before returning to her threshold, sufficiently wet enough to allow him to part her folds and slip just inside.

Yes, she thinks at first, her body enthusiastically welcoming the first few inches of him, crowding all those aching places within her. She needs this, in a way she once needed water to survive in the desert. She must have it.

Ben holds her gaze in his as he slowly advances, and it's almost too much. She wants to look away, to be in her own head alone while he does this. But she can't. She's as pinned in his dark stare as she is by his cock pushing into her.

But it just keeps going, and soon the yes has turned into an oh, and now she's wincing, just a little, because there's just so much of him.

At her flinch, he switches immediately to a gentle retreat.

"No," she gasps, her nails digging into him.

"It's okay," he murmurs. His arms are shaking, and she's pretty sure he's holding himself back. "I've got you."

So she relaxes, and is rewarded when he pushes back in, and with a few more of these shallow thrusts he manages to coax her open enough to take more of him, and more, until the blaze of need inside her roars into a full forest fire and her legs wrap themselves around him and he hilts. Ben lowers himself to her, giving her a minute to adjust, his whole body sliding against hers in a delicious ocean of skin against skin. One arm wraps around behind her, holding her to him like he can't get enough contact. Like she's something precious.

But there's nothing delicate or precious about what he does with that thick weapon buried inside her. While his top half tries to keep things sweet, something else has taken over below and suddenly he's moving, a little before she's ready for it, his labored breaths the only evidence for how he's trying to be careful. Even still he pumps into her with increasing force, losing control until he's pummeling her body with all the iron strength she's always seen in him.

And Rey doesn't hold back her sounds. She couldn't, even if she wanted to. All her cries and moans and whimpers and keening fills the air around them. Ben is full of his own, too. Huffs and growls and grunts, all strung together with incoherent praise about how good she feels, how well she's taking it, how beautiful she is.

And she is taking it, she realizes. It surprises her that she can, because this is...this is intense in a way nothing else has ever been. Something in her rises to meet his strength, to resist his punishing pace. She barely has any time at all to figure out if it feels good or not, because her body doesn't seem to care. It just needs and wants more and wants all. The sensation of a foreign object moving in her most sensitive spot is weird, but yes, she decides as he plows into her, it is very good.

So good, that tight feeling in her belly grows and grows until she feels like she's on the verge of flying apart.

"Don't you dare hold it in, scavenger," he snarls against her forehead, as much invading her mind as he is her body. "It's mine. I want to hear it."

His. She wants to scoff, but she really doesn't have the capacity to voice much of anything. She angles her hips just so and now he's driving right into somewhere deep and sensual. And ah! that is — perfect.

Ben fucks her like its their last few minutes left to live, like a madman dragged into mania. There's something so raw about the way he moves above her, something visceral. It makes her feel powerful and powerless all in the same breath. His eyes are two black suns, blazing with a feverish light.

"We belong together, Rey," he huffs. "We are one. You know it."

Yes, she thinks. Yesyesyesyesyesyes

"Say it," he says, rough and demanding.

Rey doesn't want to say it. She kind of just wants him to shut up so she can focus on the feeling of being so uncomfortably full with each blinding thrust.

But damn him and the way he so easily sees her thoughts, because suddenly he stops, halfway buried. She cries out in angry protest and tries to buck herself onto him, but he backs away exactly in sync so she never gets him even an inch deeper. It's maddening.

"Say it," he says again, and those live coal eyes of his glitter.

But he feels it too, the wild lust. She can tell it's killing him too, the way he trembles, every muscle coiled tight. She might be able to wait him out, to beat him at this game, keep her mouth clamped shut until he gives in to his own surging desires.

He pulls out a little more until only his tip is still inside her, the karcker. Rey seethe and digs her nails into his skin. "You bastard."

"You know, so say it. Say 'Kylo, I know we belong together and I'm sorry for running away.'"

Oh, the motherfucker. That was not the deal. She shoves him with all her strength, toppling him over but keeping her legs locks around his hips so she flips with him. Now he's the one on the ground and she's on top, where she firmly and deliberately sinks all the way onto him, a loud and lewd groan of relief rushing past her lips. She throws her head back and braces herself on his chest, rocking back and forth a little to stir up her insides with him. She can feel every inch, buried into her deepest places — maybe a little too deep because she feels him nudge against something that won't give. Her limit. It's not the most comfortable thing in the world, but if she adjusts a little — there, yes, that's better.

"Rey" he groans, his hands automatically finding her hips to coax her into moving.

She smirks. "Oh, you want more, do you?"

He holds her down as he bucks into her. Stars burst in her vision again and she has to shake her head to keep control here. She leans over, her mouth right next to his ear, and gives a few rolls of her hips that make him gasp.

"I'm not sorry for leaving," she whispers, and his whole body tenses beneath her. "I had to do it. And I would do it again."

She rolls her hips again, and tilts them back and forth, grinding his length inside her.

"You're wrong about something else too."

She lifts her head so that she can look at him, and the expression on his face is mingled ecstasy and agony, and she knows he's afraid of what she'll say next. This knowledge gives her a surge of satisfaction.

"I don't belong with Kylo Ren," she tells him. "I belong with Ben Solo, and he belongs with me."

And apparently this is the right thing to say because suddenly she's flat on her back again and a Ben is over her and he's drilling into her so frantically and now — oh, now he's — he's kissing her. His lips find hers in a desperate, messy collision.

And it's wet too, because — is he crying? Are those tears? She can't tell because her orgasm crashes over her with so much force that she wails — but Ben doesn't let much of it escape before he's caught it for himself in that desperate, devouring kiss. And now his thrusts are ferocious and erratic, each one send shockwaves through her still reeling body. He plunges into her in one last drive, a strangled noise spilling over her lips as he pushes and pushes and pushes into her, as if he could stuff all of himself inside her if he just pushes hard enough. She feels warmth and the strong pulsing of his huge cock.

He braces himself on one arm, his lips still seeking hers a little drunkenly as his other hand glides down her body to her hip, holding her as he gives a few more lazy residual thrusts before he finally grows still, panting against her cheek.

Rey rakes her hands through his soft locks, gasping for air. He twitches within her, and her muscles spasm around him. She grabs his face and leans her head up, slotting her lips against his in a soft, sensual slide. When she lets her head drop again, he's staring at her, wide-eyed.

Eventually he slides out and rolls onto his back. His cock glistens with them. Rey lays there, a bit stunned, a bit exhilarated.

"That was…" she searches for the word.

"Fun," Ben supplies breathlessly.

She laughs. "Fun."

It's a weird reality wherein the Supreme Leader of the tyrannical First Order and the galaxy's last Jedi aggressively fuck on a planet split between life and death, and weirder still that their consensus on the act would be that it was fun, but here they are. She laughs. Her insides feel all fluttery and effervescent. She's never felt quite so carefree as she does right now. Even though the magma in her veins is only temporarily appeased, and already Rey wants—

"To do it again?" Ben says, sitting up.

His face is more open than she's ever seen it. A light glimmering there, a — is that a smile teasing at the corner of his lips? It is. And — it's growing, and stars, it's beautiful. Rey had no idea he could look like this. She sits up and reaches for it, her hand on his cheek, her thumb running over the dimples that wide smile makes.

She nods.

"Me too," he says, and takes her hands, pulling her towards him. He guides her to straddle his lap. His cock hasn't softened the least degree. Rey isn't sure, but she thinks that's unusual. Isn't it usually over when the one with the penis finishes?

"The pollen," he explains, teasing one of her breasts as she settles onto him and sinks down, impaling herself on the thick intrusion that just left her a moment ago. His hands wrap around her middle and slide over her back, squeezing the lobes of her ass. The place where her body meets his is very messy now, as his re-entry squeezes out much of what he just put into her, but neither of them seem to mind. There's a perfectly adequate pool of water by which to clean up when they're done.

He holds her close and mouths at her throat, emboldened now to lick and suck and taste any skin he can find. Rey slides up and down his shaft, enjoying every slippery pass.

They stay like this for a while. Ben leans her back so he can suck one of her tits into his mouth again and Rey goes absolutely feral, raking lines into his arms, tugging hard on his hair, but when they're both too far gone for niceties and they just need to fuck, he falls onto his back, holds her tight to his chest and pistons into her from beneath. And it's almost terrifying, how much she can feel every inch him, with her abdomen pressed tight to his groin, how she can feel the depth of his plunges. She latches onto his skin with her teeth and whimpers into him as she comes, and comes, and comes.

This time when he bursts, there's even more spilling into her than before. He gasps and clutches her tight, holding her down while he fills her. She doesn't climb off right away when he's done. It feels nice on his chest like this, so she stays there, his arms wrapped around her, embracing her protectively.

He still doesn't soften inside her, not even after several minutes like this. It's still an iron pole stuck in her, and the burn in her belly still simmers, and they're not nearly finished yet. But they take this moment to breathe anyway. Ben's heartbeat thuds hard and fast under her head.

"What happens now?" she asks softly.

"We still have a few hours before this stuff fully wears off," he says, canting his pelvis to nudge deeper into her, just a little. "So I'd say this looks like our immediate future."

There's a good chance Rey won't be able to walk properly for a while after this. The abuse her poor cunt is taking, she'll definitely feel it when it's all over. But for now, her drug-fueled body keeps her from feeling any soreness, even as stretched and plugged as she is. She gives him a reply by way of rocking into him again, teasing just a little.

"And afterwards?"

He grumbles, and his arms around her tighten. "I don't know."

It doesn't matter, she decides. She wants to be with Ben — and he knows it. But he knows the terms, too. It's Ben, she wants. Not Kylo.

"Did you really come here to try to save me?" he asks, tucking some hair behind her ear.

"Yes," she said. "Stupid?"

He thinks about this for a minute. And then, "No."

She kisses his chest, trying to soothe away the angry mark she'd left there in her mindless passion. He runs a hand up her back in slow, comforting strokes. His thoughts are difficult to discern. He conceals them. Nevertheless, this feels right. It feels good. Like they've made the right choice at last, even though Rey isn't even sure what choice they've made here. Something hums between them, two halves fit snugly together, something that feels a lot like wholeness.

"More?" Ben whispers a few minutes later, and she realizes she's squirming against him again. She nods.

This time he takes her on her stomach.

Its hours later. They've coupled more than a half dozen times, exploring different positions, saying the most outrageous things to each other. Rey is exhausted, and she's beginning to hurt. The last time Ben slides into her, she whimpers as much from pain as she does pleasure. She can't take much more, and that's probably a good sign because it means she's finally coming back to herself.

He rocks into her gently, setting a slow, lazy pace that coaxes their worn-out muscles into one final show. The soreness fades a little, but not all the way this time. It will probably be her last attempt. For now.

Because the one surprising thing about all of this, is that even though the burn of her body is finally ebbing away, her hunger for Ben remains, bright as ever. She wants to be with him. And he wants to be with her too. If either of them made another offer, odds are good that one or both of them would abandon their previously held positions without question.

Which means things are still complicated.

"I'll go back to the First Order," he says, kissing her gently as he moves slowly in and out. "And you'll go back to the Resistance."

She frowns. "What?"

He suckles at her clavicle. "Do you trust me?"

A really loaded question, that. Now that Rey's mind is clearer, she can't really say that she does. Her eyes narrow and she doesn't say anything. Her voice is too hoarse for any more of her new noises. Ben has taken them all. So she just breathes soft puffs as he eases her through their last time.

He chuckles, and she's pretty sure it's the first time she's ever heard him make that sound. "Ah, well I guess I can't fault you for that. I haven't exactly earned your trust."

"No," she agrees. "You haven't."

Still, when his lips find hers again, it doesn't even matter that she can't be certain of his motives. Everything is dark and light in balanced flux, it's right and wrong and good and bad rolled into perfect harmony. She doesn't trust him, and she does. It doesn't make sense, and it absolutely makes sense. And she can't really explain any of it.

"Rey, you're mine. And I'm yours. Your Ben. Kylo is dead. I've buried him here," he touches her abdomen.

Her Ben. Emotion stings in her throat, and she pulls him down for a searing kiss before any of it can spill out. His tongue slides against hers in a tender gesture, his teeth teasing at her lip. She feels every spark of his affection bubbling through their bond, and knew that he feels hers.

"We're going to let it all die," he promises her with every thrust. "Starting with the First Order. You keep doing what you're doing with the Resistance."

"And what will you do," she asks softly.

He just smiles. And Rey thinks she could really get used to his smiles.

When she returns to the Resistance, Finn, Poe, and Rose ambush her with questions about where she'd gone. She holds up the moldy old Jedi text as evidence (something Ben managed to snag out of the cave along with her clothes.) Connix says Leia wants to see her, and there Rey gives Leia a report of her activities — minus the pollen and minus Ben and minus the sex. She says her search wasn't entirely useless, though. She met a spy who is going to feed her information. The way Leia looks at her is a little odd, and Rey wonders what she can sense. Still, she doesn't press, for which Rey is grateful.

Life settles in to something new and thrilling. The Resistance gains a mysterious advantage over the First Order now, and nobody can quite explain it. Rey keeps her happy secret and delights in the newly frequent moments where the Force bridges their minds and, when they can snatch some privacy, they collide again and again without the help of any purple dust.